my adorable headache part of what is making my life so long and complicated this week is a lovely 14 year old girl admitted to my paediatrics ward with anorexia nervosa. i honestly adore this child but she is a royal pain in my arse sometimes. allow me to recap a conversation i had with my skinny little patient yesterday afternoon.

G: you know i'm not eating 2250 calories today
Ms. M: why?
G: because yesterday i only had 1500
Ms. M: what happened to the rest of the food we sent you?
G: it's in a drawer in my bedside table
Ms. M: what's in there?
G: my AM snack, PM snack, and part of my lunch. i mashed it up and put it in a bag.
Ms. M: get out the bag, let's see what's in there.
G: (takes bag out of drawer, opens it)
Ms. M: (sees mishmash of crushed cookies, strawberry yogurt, pudding) you know, in a few days, that would really start to stink.
G: does apple juice kill plants?
Ms. M: G, did you water your plant with apple juice?
G: yes.

this is in no way meant to be pro-ana or any of that crap. just a little snippet of my life as a peds RD. wow, the glamour.

today: she bargained and argued her way out of more foods served to her and told me flat-out she would be refusing the PM snack. i told her she was expected to eat it. Later on, she was accompanying the nurse on her patient visits, as it was "take-your-child-to-work day" and poor G is all movied-out. she's got nothing to do in the hospital. so she was shadowing her nurse.

Ms. M: so you are playing the role of the nurse today?
G: yeah.
Ms. M: so you're going to force yourself to eat?
Nurse: you're going to give yourself some encouraging words?
G: yeah, 'G, you should really eat that snack', 'no, G, I don't think I can do it'.
Ms. M: be sure to threaten yourself with tube-feeding if you refuse to eat it!
(no, i didn't really say that last line, but it would have been funny).

it was cute to see her turning from left and right, pretending to talk to herself. she's a funny girl, i tell you but a pain in my neck from heck!  Ms. M ¶ 10:32 PM